Law School Academic Support Blog

Call For Papers: Creating Excellence In Learning And Teaching Law

CALL FOR CONFERENCE PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS: "Creating Excellence in Learning and Teaching for Today's Law Students"

October 2-3, 2015, Phoenix, AZ

ABSTRACTS DUE: July 15, 2015

Arizona Summit Law School (ASLS) will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary with a conference for legal educators, law students, the legal community, and anyone interested in legal education. The Conference will be opened by Professor Gerald Hess, a leading American scholar on legal education, and founder of the Institute for Law School Teaching at Gonzaga University School of Law. The Conference will include panels and workshops intended to address an array of challenges facing law schools in the early 21st Century.

TOPICS: Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

- Applying the latest teaching techniques, methods and technology in the classroom
- Integrating practice-ready skills with doctrinal teaching
- Teaching the underprepared student
- Keeping higher performing students engaged and challenged
- Teaching alternative and second career students
- Preparing students for the new legal marketplace
- Building an excellent academic support program
- Preparing students to serve underserved communities

PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

Select papers will be published in the Arizona Summit Law Review, ASLS's flagship publication, or Accord, the internet-based sub-journal of Arizona Summit Law Review. To submit a paper, please send the following information by July 15, 2015:

- Author(s) name, contact information, and school affiliation
- Author(s) CV
- Title of the proposed paper
- A brief description (500 words or less) of the paper

Participants will be notified of their selection by August 15, 2015. Please note that travel assistance is not available.

Please direct all questions and final submissions to the Conference Chair, Dr. Marren Sanders, at [email protected]

PRESENTATION PROPOSAL SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

The Conference Committee welcomes proposals for 25-minute conference presentations or panel discussions, and anticipates a limited number of 50-minute slots as well. To submit a proposal, please send the following information by July 15, 2015:

- Presenter(s) name, contact information, and school affiliation
- Presenter(s) CV
- Title of the proposed presentation
- A brief (one paragraph) description of the presentation, including a description of the presentation format (lecture with Q&A, interactive, PowerPoint, etc.)
- A two-sentence summary of the presentation for the conference program, if accepted
- Length of presentation
- Technology needs for the presentation

Participants will be notified of their selection by August 15, 2015. Please note that travel assistance is not available.

Please direct all questions and final proposals to the Conference Chair, Dr. Marren Sanders, at [email protected]

MGO - via "The Faculty Lounge"

Academic Support Position: Ave Maria Assistant Professor of Advanced Critical Thinking

THE AVE MARIA SCHOOL OF LAW IN NAPLES FLORIDA invites applications for an Assistant Professor of Advanced Critical Thinking. The person in this position will teach academic success related courses and provide intensive academic counseling to students. This position requires the ability to identify students’ academic strengths and opportunities and to devise effective instructional approaches and counseling strategies to help students optimize their academic performance. The person in this position will have exceptional teaching and counseling skills, the ability to work effectively as part of a team, sound judgment, the ability to deal with sensitive situations using discretion, and the ability to foster close relationships with students, faculty, and staff.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Teach the Applied Critical Thinking and Legal Analysis class, a three-credit course designed to optimize students’ academic performance.

• Provide academic counseling to students and participate in efforts to support all students’ law school success.

• Create and deliver academic success presentations and workshops to groups of students. 

• Prepare, administer, and provide in-depth feedback on practice exams and actual exams.

• Track students’ performance and maintain records and statistics concerning students’ progress.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

4. Qualifications:

Qualified applicants will possess a J.D. degree from an ABA-accredited law school, bar certification, relevant experience, and a strong dedication to student success. Previous experience teaching, tutoring, or providing academic counseling is a plus. Florida bar membership, practice experience, and a strong interest in the learning sciences are also helpful. Some evening and weekend work required

5. Contact:

Please submit a cover letter, resume, and list of at least three professional references to [email protected].

Ave Maria School of Law is an Equal Opportunity Employer that values diversity, and strongly encourages applications from persons of diverse backgrounds willing to support the institutional mission.

Are Students Less Able or Was it ExamSoft?

Hat tip to Katherine Silver Kelly for sharing the link to this post on the Summer 2014 bar exam results. This article is a must read for anyone interested in the decline in the MBE scores from the July 2014 bar exam.  Deborah Merritt, on the Law School Cafe blog, explains the scoring process of the MBE and shows how the ExamSoft debacle could have caused bar results to suffer in more ways than one.

(LBY)

The Bar Exam "Under Fire"

The New York Times has addressed some of the recent (and not so recent) criticisms regarding the Summer 2014 bar examination results in their article, Bar Exam, the Standard to Become a Lawyer, Comes Under Fire. While this article does not unearth new information for many of us, it does legitimize the problem. Because, as we know, there is a problem. The NCBE essentially has a monopoly on bar licensure. They have moved from releasing a limited amount of data to an almost complete lack of transparency. Without this crucial data there is no accountability, which leads to less confidence in the examination and what it purports to assess. This lack of confidence is highlighted in the Times piece and has been echoed in a similar fashion since the summer results were released. 

In order to validate the bar exam as a viable assessment tool, the released score results should be detailed, transparent, and effectively communicated. At this point, it appears that complete transparency is the only way to restore credibility in the bar exam and the work of the NCBE.

(LBY)

Law School Action Comics #12

(Alex Ruskell)

Guest Column: How Do You Solve a Problem Like “Whatever?” (Chad Houston)

How Do You Solve a Problem Like “Whatever?”

I am a new ASPer; I joined Valparaiso Law School just a few months ago. I was nervous about getting started in a new field.  My nerves were not related to lower bass passage numbers; I have faith  those numbers will improve in time. I was nervous because I knew I was going to have to wage war with a self-defeating mindset that is too common among current law students.

That particular mindset is summed up in one word: “whatever.” Oftentimes that word is used in the phrase, “whatever happens, happens.”  It is a simple phrase with a loaded message. Yes, I agree, whatever happens does indeed happen; very few would people challenge that assertion for its truth. However, “whatever happens, happens” is a terrible mindset during law school, and especially during your bar exam preparation period.

It is clear that many students are entering law school and bar prep already prepared for the possibility of failing.  The “whatever” that happens just might be failure, especially if a student is underprepared and lacking basic study skills. As an ASP professional, I push for students to disallow that possibility. I explain to students that I locked myself in my parent’s garage during bar prep and studied to a point that probably would have even made the formidable Paula Franzese unhappy.

I am not saying that we should preach to students, but we should encourage a different mindset. We can’t allow students to think, “whatever happens, happens,” anymore. We have to motivate our students to adopt a mindset to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

As an ASP professional, I meet with students every day who have joined the “whatever happens” mindset, students who are preparing for the negative, whether it is exam failure or bar failure. I am pushing them to embrace the “whatever it takes” mindset. It is easy to just do “whatever.” It requires bravery and discipline to do whatever it takes (to succeed!)

The motivational solution is not to accept “whatever happens, happens,” but to force your desired outcome by doing absolutely whatever it takes to make it happen. Unfortunately, it is not easy to make this concept stick or to present it in a way that is truly memorable.

However, I always like to remind students of the three distinct types of people taking exams. First, is the person who gives it a try, and when they fail, they can say, “Hey, at least I tried.” Second, is the person who gives it their best shot, and when they fail, they can say, “Hey, at least I gave it my best shot.”

Chad Houston, Valparaiso Law ASP

New Property Apps

USC Professor Ned Snow has released two Property Law apps you might find helpful for your students:  

The first app is called Property Law Made Simple.  It provides the black-letter rules of Property, with examples and explanations to illustrate each concept.  The app also provides 50 MBE-style practice problems, with detailed explanations for each problem.  Perfect for learning, reviewing, or mastering 1L Property.  Covers most topics (except future interests).  It's available on iTunes and Google Play for$0.99.  

The second app is called Future Interests Made Simple.  It teaches Estates, Future Interests, and the Rule Against Perpetuities.  Many examples and explanations illustrate each estate and interest.  This app provides 60 practice problems with detailed explanations.  It's available on iTunes and Google Play for $2.99.

(Alex Ruskell)

 

NY Regional ASP Conference: Friday April 17

We are pleased to announce this year’s full-day NY Academic Support Workshop, to be held from 9:30 to 5:30 at New York Law School on Friday, April 17.  As usual, this will be a small and rather-intimate gathering of academic support professionals and colleagues actively working to learn from one another. 

As is our usual practice, the afternoon sessions of the workshop will have an open agenda and room to include any subject of interest to those in attendance, while the morning sessions will be centered on a specific topic. For this year’s morning session we would like to concentrate on working with law students who have recently been placed on academic supervision or probation. How do we best help these students? What unique problems do they face? What sorts of pedagogies help them become motivated and effective learners?  Any and all insights, discussions, ideas or presentations will be welcome.

One thing that makes all ASP gatherings exciting has always been our unique emphasis on interaction – ASP folks DO things together so that we can learn together. NY Workshop participants work with one another to develop or enhance our individual lessons, materials, presentations, or any other part of our professional endeavors.  No one who comes is allowed to be a back-bencher.  If you would like to attend, please let us know whether you want to share one of your own issues, ideas, etc., comment on ones brought by other participants, or both. And please let us know whether you think your topic/question/issue/material/presentation lends itself to our morning’s theme or to the more open-ended part of our agenda.  When we confirm who will attend and what specific questions the participants plan to address, we will send out a finalized workshop agenda.  

RSVP to Kris at [email protected].  

Since this is not a formal conference there is no fee to attend.  We hope to see many of you soon!

Wichita Lineman

"I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road
Searchin' in the sun for another overload
I hear you singin' in the wire, I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

I know I need a small vacation but it don't look like rain
And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain
And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line" -- Wichita Lineman, written by Jimmy Webb

 

I've been on a big Glen Campbell kick lately.  The other day, I was working with several students on essay writing and the big issue for all of them was that they were writing correct legal rules but following them with analyses that didn't actually address the rule the students had just written.  For example, after writing "Proof of adultery can be by clear preponderance of the evidence, or opportunity and disposition to commit adultery," they were writing things like "Since 2009, when the marriage started falling apart because of money issues, Lola went to Bertie and told her …." instead of "Here, Skippy was seen leaving Lola's apartment four times late at night when Lola's husband was away on business and Lola kept telling her book club how handsome she thought Skippy was.  Consequently, Slappy can likely prove adultery."  Since these students were having a lot of time management issues, their lack of focus was really killing them.

 

In discussing the issue with their writing, we started talking about song lyrics we admired versus song lyrics we thought were ridiculous, and I was making the argument that a well-crafted song, just like any piece of well-crafted writing, stuck to its themes and imagery and didn't just bounce willy-nilly from idea to idea (basically the difference between The Cult's "Plastic fantastic lobster telephone!" and Belle and Sebastian's "So I gave myself to God -- There was a pregnant pause before He said okay").

 

I haven't done it in a few years, but I used to have students write short poems or songs to answer an essay question as a fun way to make my point about the necessity of making sure an answer actually stays on point and addresses the rules stated in a student's IRAC.  There was a bit of "why are we doing this goofy thing?" pushback, but all of those students managed to dig themselves out of some pretty deep GPA holes, so I think it was a useful exercise.  I haven't brought back the assignment per se, but I have been talking about the idea a lot in my individual meetings with students regarding 1L or bar exam essays.

 

The other day as I was spiraling down the parking garage on my way home, "Wichita Lineman" came up on my iPod.  I hadn't really thought about the lyrics before, but as I listened to them, I admired how Webb's portrait of loneliness sticks so closely to the imagery of a telephone wire repairman.  As the "first existential song" in country music, it's pretty great, and a nice example of the importance of continuity and reference in any well-crafted writing:

 

Wichita Lineman

 

(Alex Ruskell)

Third Annual AASE Conference

 

 

Registration is NOW OPEN

for the

3^rd Annual AASE National Conference

May 26-28, 2015

The John Marshall Law School

Chicago, Illinois

To register go to:

http://www.associationofacademicsupporteducators.org/conferencesevents.html

You can update your AASE membership at the time of registration!

 

We have reserved a block of rooms at the Hilton Chicago, 720 South Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605.  Conference attendees should make their reservations directly with the Hilton Chicago through this web link https://resweb.passkey.com/go/AASE2015, or by calling the toll-free number 1-877-865-5320 and referring to the room rate for AASE.  The conference rates are $169/night for run of the house or $189/night for a room with 2 double beds and 2 baths.  Reservations must be made by May 4, 2015 to take advantage of the rate.

 

The conference schedule is available at the conference web site. 

The schedule is subject to change.